If you wanted to be a book author, until very recently, you would inevitably need to find a publisher, land a book contract, and then go through all the hassles involved in the process until your book finally hit the market.

Well, things are certainly changing.

For one thing you now have ebooks and authors that self-publish their work and promote it themselves, mostly on the Internet. Instead of trying to get the approval of established publishers they go directly to the market and try to get people interested.

A couple of weeks ago there was another interesting development. Amazon announced that it would create a sort of publishing arm, out placing traditional publishers as middlemen. Here’s a quote from a NY Times articled titled Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal:

Amazon.com has taught readers that they do not need bookstores. Now it is encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers.

Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers.

You probably know Tim Ferris, author of “The 4 Hour Work Week” right? He was the first author to sign the deal with Amazon, and many others are following. In my opinion this is both a smart move by Amazon and a good thing for the industry in general, and it will make the market for books more meritocratic.